2015 MLB Season O/U Win Totals

[Nox]

but i'm not a clown.

 

Noted Sir.

[GD]

Coaching != scouting. A good coach who can identify mechanical failures and such is useful at any and every level and is a key cog in a player development process. A scout sitting in the stands, as Nox said, is really only (mildly) useful below AA.

[TwistedLogic]

Coaching != scouting. A good coach who can identify mechanical failures and such is useful at any and every level and is a key cog in a player development process. A scout sitting in the stands, as Nox said, is really only (mildly) useful below AA.

 

I think this is where it comes down to the semantics of the term scouting. If we're talking about a bunch of old turds sitting in the stands and we're talking about the concept of scouts and their opinions themselves, then I agree with you guys, that they're essentially useless at double-A and above. When I use the term scouting, I'm talking about the entire concept of scouting in itself, which is to analyze the visual aspects of a player's game that don't show up in numbers (poor throwing mechanics, a messy hitch in a swing, etc). To pick out flaws or potential changes in a player's mechanics and use that information to better them. Adjusting Sanchez's mechanics to try and help him put off injury as long as he can, realizing how good Stroman's sinker is and encouraging him to use it more, realizing that Bautista has elite bat speed, and simply needs to rework his stance and swing to become a good player, etc. I'm referring very much to the coaching aspect of scouting, and I don't think that that facet of the game is ever really useless at any level.

[Laika]

Coaching != scouting.

 

Correct. They are two different forms of commonly peddled psuedoscience, as practiced.

 

Scouts are like naturopaths.

Coaches are like naturopathic surgeons.

 

The former knows much less than he thinks he does.

The latter knows the same amount as the former, but he gets to tinker with bodies on top of it.

[Laika]

Scout - "Aaron Sanchez has trouble with his command"

Coach - "Aaron Sanchez has trouble with his command so let's destroy his lower body mechanics and increase his risk of arm injury, all while failing to help his command in any noticeable way"

[Angrioter]

Noted Sir.

 

Coaching != scouting. A good coach who can identify mechanical failures and such is useful at any and every level and is a key cog in a player development process. A scout sitting in the stands, as Nox said, is really only (mildly) useful below AA.

 

In the case of Latin players (Low IQ and lack of brain activity) is indispensable/essential a good coach to teach them how to do things, no matter the level.

Luis Mercedes helped Edwin Encarnacion a lot, and they along with Cano, still working together at Dominican Republic

[jays76]

Why are you listing Hellickson's and Escobar's departures as reasons for their demise? They're each 1 win players.

 

I'm surprised Hellickson isn't worth a little more. In Yunel's case though like I said the party's over once he leaves, that was the clearly the reason why we sucked in 2013 and the Braves have never been the same. It's the curse of the Maricon!

[jays76]

Correct. They are two different forms of commonly peddled psuedoscience, as practiced.

 

Scouts are like naturopaths.

Coaches are like naturopathic surgeons.

 

The former knows much less than he thinks he does.

The latter knows the same amount as the former, but he gets to tinker with bodies on top of it.

 

What about Iridologists, would they be the GM's because they over(see) everything?

[KingKat]

For every scout that said "Wow, Zach Duke's new mechanics are going to make him a killer reliever", you'd get several saying similar things about different players that would not have come to fruition.

 

ex,

"I think with these new mechanics, Ricky will be able to be much more consistent on the mound"

"I think Adeiny is one of the elite defensive shortstops in the game"

"Esmil's new sinker makes him a good candidate to stick in an MLB starting rotation"

 

How do you parse that information? You can't, really. So the lot of it is more or less junk.

 

You're not going to buy into a scout's opinion that Bautista's new leg-kick makes him an elite power hitter any quicker than the data will start to show you that same thing. If you're willing to buy in immediately, you're going to end up with a lot of turds on your roster at the behest of a scout's whim.

 

Yeah that's the crux of the issue. It's not that a scout can't be right. It's more how could you ever filter out the noise before you've already committed resources.

[KingKat]

Yeah that's the crux of the issue. It's not that a scout can't be right. It's more how could you ever filter out the noise before you've already committed resources.

 

One of the first signs of AA's naivety was the commitment to scouting. More scouts will equal better information was a common narrative in the early years but though he talked a good game, it never really made sense and you don't really hear it anymore. Quantity of scouting information won't help you if you don't have a mechanism for seperating the wheat from the chaff and AA never talked about that. He just talked about how having a bunch of new scouts would give him an edge. But how do you know which scouts are or aren't trustworthy? Is their even much of a seperation or since it's largely guess work, do they all have pretty similar rates of success and failures?

 

I really wonder how baseball would go about identifying a theoreticaly "bad" scout and eliminating his inputs from the overall pool. We're talking stuff that takes years to come to fruition. Add in a white boy's club culture, add in the fact that front offices are constantly in flux, add in and the built in excuse that you can always blame bad results on bad development, add in how a couple of flukes could easily cover up a lot of faiure and ultimately, it just seems like the kind of job where you could get away with sucking for your entire career.

[Spanky99]

Do you thinks I'm a f***ing clown?

Yes, i f*** with hookers (I pay), old ladies (they pay me), guys (Someone have to get the money for food) and some animals (Goats my favourites), but i'm not a clown.

 

Noted Sir.

 

lol

[Spanky99]

Excellent read fellas, I was thoroughly entertained...FU BTS!

[Laika]

One of the first signs of AA's naivety was the commitment to scouting. More scouts will equal better information was a common narrative in the early years but though he talked a good game, it never really made sense and you don't really hear it anymore. Quantity of scouting information won't help you if you don't have a mechanism for seperating the wheat from the chaff and AA never talked about that. He just talked about how having a bunch of new scouts would give him an edge. But how do you know which scouts are or aren't trustworthy? Is their even much of a seperation or since it's largely guess work, do they all have pretty similar rates of success and failures?

 

I really wonder how baseball would go about identifying a theoreticaly "bad" scout and eliminating his inputs from the overall pool. We're talking stuff that takes years to come to fruition. Add in a white boy's club culture, add in the fact that front offices are constantly in flux, add in and the built in excuse that you can always blame bad results on bad development, add in how a couple of flukes could easily cover up a lot of faiure and ultimately, it just seems like the kind of job where you could get away with sucking for your entire career.

 

More scouts can = better information, but only if you're applying them correctly. Getting scouts to new regions is one way that it could help. Maybe having more cross-checkers would help too (for obvious sample size reasons).

 

Dalton Pompey might be one example of how extra scouts could help. How many teams were on the high school kid coming out of John Fraser in Mississauga? It was in their own backyard so it's not fair to say that extra scouts helped Toronto identify his tools, but imagine that Miami or some team way down there saw him, liked him, and took him.

 

Dan Jansen is another cold weather kid. Wisconsin. Some teams just don't have the bodies to scout these places. Why waste a scout in a region where one kid might pop up every year, when you can just park that scout in a motel in Florida that's a 3 hour drive from hundreds of legit prospects?

 

Cross-checking just helps add a little bit of confidence to tool grades that can be pretty dumb/random/hard to grade. If I was running a scouting department all of my underlings would hate me because I'd be pretty strict about keeping them from sharing any information whatsoever, looking up any statistics, or even watching games together. Important to be blind!

[Governator]

BUMP

 

Go read back and find out how you're faring.

[reedjohnsonfan]

BUMP

 

Go read back and find out how you're faring.

 

I'm doing quite well, I didn't post what I ended up choosing (luckily I didn't actually pick the Padres over) but it's worked well this year. Easy $$$.